movie: Daniel's Lot

 

If I could offer an example of the things a Christian movie should not be, Daniel’s Lot would be that example.

Summary

Things are not good for Daniel and his wife Christina. He has a low-paying job, she’s not had success at her realtor’s job for months, and they are way behind on their mortgage payments. This leads to lots of tension between them.

But there is no need for this tension. Daniel has inherited a small piece of property in a very good location, and he could sell it for a lot of money, thus ending his family’s financial difficulties. But he won’t. He claims that he told his father that he wouldn’t sell it until the time is right, and even says that he’s waiting for a sign from God before he sells it. This doesn’t set well with Christina, who’s getting most of the blame for the family’s difficulties.

Then Daniel starts hearing a voice, a voice like Sam Elliot in a wind tunnel, telling him to do something, though the instructions are of course vague.

Cringe

Overwhelming, unrelenting, and thoroughly saturating every level of this movie.

Anything good?

Pretty much, no. Not even the presence of the actor who played Radar on the old TV series M*A*S*H gives this movie any redeeming qualities.

Dealing with the bad

There’s so much bad about this movie that it’s hard to determine where to begin, or what needs to be dealt with. These are a few bad things, but by no means all of them.

No hero: Right from the first, we are hit over the head with the movie telling us that Daniel is the good guy, while Christina is the bad guy. But what I see in those first few minutes is this: Christina is at her job, trying to make sales at her real estate job, while Daniel is at home watching some TV preacher. In other words, Christina is being responsible, while Daniel is being irresponsible. Christina is trying to do something about their situation, while Daniel is just…watching television.

To understand my point here, let me try to put it like this: this isn’t me trying to say “She’s not wrong”, this is me saying “He’s not right”.

The problems are on both sides. Christina is wrong to think that sleeping with a client will result in anything good, but Daniel is also wrong to be whiny and complaining, for not taking responsibility for his family’s situation, for not even taking his children to church because he’s afraid of upsetting Christina (although any church he would take them to would likely not be worth attending, given his taste in TV preachers). Christina and Daniel are both wrong, but as the head of his house, Daniel is the one most responsible.

Daniel is weak. He’s constantly whining and complaining. He loses his job because he insists on taking his kids to school himself instead of letting them ride the school bus. He even lies to his boss about why he’s late for work, saying it’s because his wife was sick when she wasn’t. 

And he gets almost no character development. He’s constantly portrayed as the one in the right, as the victim. When he finally confronts Christina saying he wants her to come back, he doesn’t apologize to her about his lack of family leadership, about his whining, or about him blaming her for their family’s situation. To try to be fair, he does give ab “If I did something wrong” kind of apology in a TV interview.

Daniel is not a leader to his family. It’s little wonder that Christina has so little respect for him.

Man tears: I don’t think I’ve seen a movie where one man cries so much.

Preacher idolatry: This is shown in a few ways. Any time Daniel is watching Bishop Long on TV, we see him crying. In the one scene where Daniel attends the church where Radar is the pastor, we hear the crowd whooping at Radar’s most inane statements and see, for example, one woman grabbing at her heart as if she’s never heard anything more wonderful.

To put it another way, we don’t see people actually interacting with what the pastor says, they aren’t thinking about what they’ve heard the pastor say; rather, we see them simply accepting the pastor’s statement in an uncritical, unthoughtful manner. This is more cultic than Christian.

Acts 17

10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

We get two seemingly contrary things in this description of what happened in Berea: they eagerly received what Paul and Silas taught them, and they examined the Scripture to verify what these men are saying. But this isn’t a contradiction. The Bereans did their homework, they first listened to Paul and Silas, then they looked at the Scriptures to make sure what Paul and Silas were telling them the truth. Once they could see that Paul and Silas were speaking the truth, the people accepted their statements, and were even eager to do so. That’s what made them noble.

To see how far Paul encouraged people to not just accept anything said by anyone, even himself, consider this:

Galatians 1

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Paul was not someone who told believers to accept his words because he had some kind of position. Even a message given by an angelic being was subject to scrutiny.

As such, the fawning, unthinking acceptance on the part of Daniel and the church people in this movies is simply sickening. It is not an example to be followed by people in the church; rather, it is how they should not be.

Hearing voices

Teachings on how to hear God’s voice have saturated the church in recent decades, and not just the Pentacostals and charismatics. For my own part, for a few years I was a part of an organization called Youth With A Mission, and YWAM is very big into hearing God’s voice in all kinds of ways, so I’m no stranger to the teachings.

In the past few years, I’ve come to question a lot of what has been taught about hearing God’s voice, and I’ve seen that so much of it has little biblical support, or even none at all. This review is not really a place for an in-depth look at the flaws with so much “hearing God’s voice” teachings, so I’ll recommend God Doesn’t Whisper by Jim Osman. Give this book a try.

But to look at some of the things said about it by characters in the movie…

At one point early on, in one of his early arguments with his wife, Daniel tells her, “God talks to everyone. The Bible says it.” This is about 13:00 minutes into the movie.

So, where does the Bible tell us that God speaks to everyone?

At almost 39:00, the TV preacher Bishop Long said this, “The word of the Lord says in First Samuel that a young man by the name of Samuel learned the voice of God. Let me say this to you. When believers hear the voice of God, they will know it and they should be obedient to it.”

So, here’s a link to an online version of I Samuel 3, the chapter which gives us the account of the child Samuel hearing God calling to him. Give this chapter a look, and then consider, where does this passage tell us that Samuel learned the voice of God, or learned to hear the voice of God?

Nothing is said in this chapter about the boy needing to learn any methods or techniques to hear God calling to him. The boy did not do anything to try to hear God speaking, in fact God was the one initially doing the speaking while the boy himself was asleep.

And as far as being obedient to what God told Samuel, God didn’t really tell Samuel to do anything, although maybe the message could be understood to be for the priest Eli. But it was Eli who told Samuel to tell him what God had told Samuel.

Just because someone claims to hear a voice doesn’t mean that voice was God. How many cults have been formed because someone claimed to have some kind message from God? The founders of Islam and Mormonism wrote books about the special revelations they claimed to receive from God, and we have no reason to think they were getting messages from the true God.

There is lots of danger in this teaching about hearing voices and then doing what they tell us to do.

Law, law, and more law will fix all your problems: The basic message of this movie seems to be “If you’ll just be obedient, then God will make your life good and give you prosperity”. A lot of stress is put on obedience, especially when it comes to obeying whatever direct messages God is giving a character.

Obedience to God is a good thing. We should obey God. The Bible is filled with laws and rules, even in the New Testament, and we should obey those rules. The problem is, we all do a very poor job in obeying those rules. We Christians are still fallen, still sinful, our sanctification is still incomplete. If we are trying to earn God’s blessings by obeying God’s laws, then we will do nothing but fail.

For Christians, God has promised to provide all our needs, God will take care of us, but that doesn’t mean we will have prosperity, it doesn’t mean we’ll be like this bishop in the movie who has a big limo. Consider this…

I Corinthians 4

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

Look at how Paul writes about himself and his fellow apostles: they are poor, hungry, despised, weak, reviled, fools, scum and refuse.

What did they do wrong? How were they disobedient? What laws did they fail to obey? Why didn’t God bless the apostles with prosperity?

Also, consider what Paul writes about the Corinthians. They have become rich! They are even kings! They have so much, compared to what the apostles have. Remember, this is the same Corinthian church that Paul has to correct on many, many issues, because they were doing a lot of things wrong. In the next chapter of I Corinthians, Paul even has to chastise them over an incident of really gross sexual immorality, where a man in the church has married his own father’s widow.

I Corinthians 5

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

I Corinthians 4 actually contradicts this movie’s message.

Let me point you to the Voice of the Martyrs website, where you can find accounts of Christians suffering persecutions and even being killed because they are Christians. What did these Christians do wrong, that they should experience persecution instead of the promised prosperity of this movie?

Once you realize these people are experiencing persecution because they are obedient, that they are the ones being faithful witnesses instead of those who peddle a false gospel for shameful gain, then you’ll see more clearly how bad this movie’s message really is.

Ponderings

It is what it is: Garbage is still garbage, and putting the label Christian on it doesn’t make it any less garbage.

While understanding should be shown for someone’s early attempts at doing something new, that understanding can only go so far, especially if they insist on putting those early attempts out there for public viewing. Perhaps the people behind this movie were new to movie making, so some of the awkward elements can be explained that way, but that doesn’t explain away the bad theology that permeated this film. And more than the bad acting and poor script, this bad theology is poisonous.

Conclusion

Don’t just pass on this movie, but run as far from it as you can. It’s not worth your time.